


Love is Touching Souls

by yunmin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Complicated Relationships, Established Relationship, Fusion of Star Wars Legends and Disney Canon, Homecoming, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-01 07:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunmin/pseuds/yunmin
Summary: “You can feel Luke?”“He’s here. On the other end of our bond.”Eight years after Luke Skywalker goes missing, he comes back. In a way.





	Love is Touching Souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elsajeni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsajeni/gifts).



On a wet, watery lonely planet, one man settles upon a rock and breathes deep, opening himself up to the world around him, a world that he has not touched in so long.

Half-way across the Galaxy, a woman wakes with a start.

Mara Jade takes a moment to assess that it isn’t a dream. That Luke Skywalker really is on the other end of the force-connection they share. It’s been eight years since she felt him on the other end of the bond they share. But now he’s back. She sends a hesitant prod along the connection, and bumps into a solid force sense, that of a man who is resolute and determined.

Luke doesn’t respond.

Mara rolls over. The bedroom is cloaked in darkness. It isn’t yet dawn on the world that they’ve chosen to make their home, a world tucked into a nebula that has been forgotten to most star maps. It is a refuge of safety, the perfect place to start to rebuild what was lost when the Skywalker legacy reared its ugly head once again. But Mara doesn’t need light to find the shoulder of the man who lies beside her and shares her bed, or to find his ribs to issue a sharp jab when shaking his shoulder doesn’t work.

“Mara,” Wedge Antilles grumbles, voice thick with sleep and displeasure at being awakened, “it’s the middle of the night, whya poking me.” He bats her away fondly, hand lightly pushing at her chest.

“I can feel Luke.”

“What’s-zat-about-Luke?” Wedge mumbles. Mara waits patiently for her words to sink in. A minute later, Wedge is sat bolt upright in their bed. “You can feel Luke?” His eyes are trained on her, completely focused, wide with hope.

“He’s here.” Mara places her hand over her heart. It’s an overwrought sentimental gesture that her younger self would have been horrified at, but Mara has been through so much that a little sentimentality bothers her not. What she’s truly afraid of is how many things she left unsaid. “On the other end of our bond.”

Wedge rolls forward, tugging Mara into the circle of his arms. Mara goes willingly, subjecting herself to the whims of her clingy partner. He places a kiss to her forehead, and hold her close, as if by some miracle he will be able to sense Luke’s presence himself. “Tell him—” Wedge trails off, either thinking of what he’d want to say to Luke, or remembering that words can’t be transmitted over the bond. “He knows we still love him, right? Can you send that?”

Her love for Luke is buried deep in her chest, in a place she’d locked it away when the grief threatened to overwhelm her. In Wedge’s arms—a man she trusts completely, who has had her back at every moment, who will never let her lose herself, a man who loves Luke as dearly as she does—she finds the key and unlocks the box. The warmth and affection comes flooding out, and Mara pushes as much as it as she can across their force-bond. Wedge’s arms tighten around her, and she sends that feeling as well, how cherished she feels there, how wanted Luke could feel if he was back with them.

She receives the briefest flutter back. It’s there for a second, a fleeting pressure on the bond, a reassurance; Luke knows. He feels the same. “He knows,” Mara says, for Wedge’s benefit. It’s not his fault that he’s not force-sensitive, that he can’t have this piece of intimacy that Luke and Mara share. It had been cause for jealousy once, when she and him had tried to navigate the fact that Luke had feelings for both of them, and wasn’t prepared to give either of them up. These days, it’s accepted that both of them have things they only share with Luke—and some things they only share with each other.

Mara presses for more. Luke has stayed quiet, cut off from the Force since he fled amongst the burning of the Jedi Temple. Neither Mara or Wedge had been there that night, but they’d both raced across the Galaxy when they’d heard, seeing each other across the burnt out desolate ash that was all that remained of what Luke built, Mara falling into Wedge’s arms as the pain from Luke’s sudden disappearance from the Force threatened to overwhelm her. Luke must have come back for a reason. Maybe the Resistance has found him, and brought him the news of the danger that the Galaxy faces.

“Do you know—”

“He’s up to something,” Mara replies. She can feel that much. Luke is drawing on a tremendous amount of power. The sort of power he always rejected, that brought Mara to awe. “I don’t know what, but he’s doing something.”

Wedge nods his head. He presses a kiss to the top of Mara’s hair, and then stills, letting Mara concentrate. Mara breathes deep. She focuses her mind, remembering the meditative techniques Luke taught her all those years ago, and sees if she can work out what he’s up to. If she can’t, at least she can let him know that he’s not alone in this.

.

It’s been maybe an hour. Mara has long since gone completely still, slipped into a state of deep meditation. Wedge holds her, willing his thoughts to reach Luke as well, all the while quietly supporting his partner as she does one of the things he can never do for the man they both love.

And then Mara thrashes violently against him. Wedge catches her, folding her to him. She’d beat him in a fight, any day, hand-to-hand never being one of Wedge’s strengths, but hopefully he can reassure her that she’s in a place where she’s safe, where violence isn’t necessary. “No, you _bastard_ , don’t you fucking dare.” Mara slips into some fouler mouther cursing in a variety of languages, that Wedge barely understands, but he gets the gist. Something bad is happening.

“Mara?” he asks, with no real expectation of an answer.

“He did too much,” Mara gasps. “And now he’s _dying_.”

Wedge feels the blow like a vibroblade driven straight into his chest. He can’t. Luke can’t. Wedge has been patient, waited for Luke to come to terms with what happened, left him—after an extensive search that failed to locate any trace of him—to his grief. And now, their reward will be for him to die?

(Wedge remembers the last time he saw Luke. It had been at the academy. The dawn light had been breaking, and Wedge had spent an hour preparing his X-Wing for an urgent reconnaissance mission for Leia. Luke had wandered out, with a mug of caf, and a bright smile. “You weren’t thinking about leaving without saying goodbye?” he’d said.

“Duty calls.” Wedge had made a fond little shrug. This was a standard mission. The only thing different about this one was that when it was done, Wedge would no longer have a home to go to.

He’d drunk the caf—gulped it down with the ease of long practice—and kissed Luke goodbye. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he’d said.

He’d be back at the academy sooner than he’d planned, his mission abandoned when Mara had sent a urgent comm, breaking all protocol, telling him what had happened. All that was left was ash, and there was no sign of Luke.)

Many unfair things have happened in Wedge’s life, and yet nothing seems quite as cruel as the Galaxy giving them a glimpse of Luke, and then tearing him away again.

“Is there anything—” _you can do._ The words die on Wedge’s lips, as he realises what a monumental thing that would be to ask of Mara. An impossible task. But they’ve both done things that others have called impossible, and if maybe they could have one more thing—it would be this.

“I’m trying.” Mara’s voice sounds strained. Her hands fist in Wedge’s shirt, gripping on for dear life. “Live, Luke, dammit.”

Wedge doesn’t know what she’s doing, but he prays for her success. He has faith in Mara, more faith in her these days than he has in Luke, because Mara picked herself up and carried on and has built something to be proud of, is trying her best to make a place for herself in a Galaxy that doesn’t seem to want her in it. If Luke was in the air, if there was a TIE fighter on his tail, then it would be Wedge’s place to go and save his life. He’s been doing that since practically the moment he met Luke. But this if the Force, and that is Mara’s domain, her job to protect Luke.

Mara’s grip goes slack. Her breathing goes shallow. Her pulse slows.

“Mara?”

“He’s—” She sounds like she’s dying herself. “He’s going to live.”

She falls unconscious in Wedge’s arms.

.

The medic at the sanctuary keeps Mara under for a week, giving her a chance to recover. According to Tekli, she’s lucky to be alive. Whatever she did—which seems to involve giving Luke her own life force—it was extremely risky, and it’s a miracle that it worked, and she survived it.

Wedge spends the entirety of the week fretting, attempting to keep up a semblance of a schedule for all the kids they currently have under their charge. He can’t teach them anything about the Force, but he can keep the routine, help them through their practice. Hold his scheduled piloting classes for those who have signed up. Attempt to steer them through the galactic core curriculum, though neither Wedge or Mara had an ordinary education. Wedge understands the things he needs to, things with practical application, but struggles with an effective analysis of award-winning novel _Beach of Stars._

Mara wakes, eventually, and she confirms that what she did worked; Luke Skywalker is still hanging onto the other end of their bond. He might not be happy about that state of affairs, but he’ll have to live with it. Neither Wedge or Mara is any the wiser about where he is, and conveying a location over force-bond just doesn’t work. When they finally collect their mail, and check the news, a couple of days after—the sanctuary is hidden behind a space anomaly that blocks holonet signals, and makes transmissions of any kind difficult to receive or send—they discover that the Resistance has been decimated and Luke Skywalker has passed into myth.

(A guilt rises in Wedge’s chest, when he discovers the message asking for help, with Leia’s personal code attached. There’s no way he could have responded to it, and Leia knows that. And he doesn’t know what he and his little band of Jedi could do—there’s a reason that they aren’t out there in the Galaxy fighting already, and it’s because they aren’t ready to take on that fight yet.)

“You sure he’s alive?” Wedge asks Mara. He doesn’t doubt her, but if Luke’s own sister thinks he’s dead—a person Wedge would also trust with his life—he thinks he ought to check.

Mara smiles softly. She closes her eyes, and pushes against the bond. She gets a disgruntled twang back, but that’s enough. “He’s alive,” she says. “He’s not happy about it, but he’s alive.”

.

Time passes.

Mara goes on a smuggling-run for Talon Karrde, procuring new ships and supplies for the Resistance. She doesn’t stick around for the handover. Wedge sends a message to the Resistance, letting them know that he’s ready and willing to fight, run missions, train pilots, whatever they need from him. It’s no use going to the last pre-arranged pick-up; the status of the Resistance has changed immeasurably since then.

They stay worried about Luke, who seems unsuccessful in his attempts to kick Mara out of his head again.

They keep working with their students, though every moment of that is spent wondering when they might have to send these kids out into a war. They’d never stop any of them from signing up to fight—Karrde has one of their eldest on staff currently, serving as his guard, keeping her eye on the Galaxy.

And then a ship appears overhead.

“That’s a YT-1300,” Mara says, voice grim, arms folded.

“More than that,” Wedge replies. He squints skyward. “Only one YT-1300 that looks like that.”

“Who’s flying it?” Mara asks. They know that Han is dead. “Should I take the kids inside.”

“It’s got to be someone from the Resistance. Possibly Chewie.” Whoever’s at the Falcon’s controls, they know what they’re doing. Wedge could never manage such a clean landing, and he doubts it was in Han’s capabilities. “Keep the kids here.”

The kids make quite a sight, Wedge knows that much. Dressed in a motley collection of clothes, most of their own choosing, some look like spacers, some like farm-kids, and there’s two who have adopted traditional Jedi smocks. All of them carry lightsabers on their belts. They don’t get a lot of visitors, out at sanctuary—the location is known only to a select few, but Wedge doesn’t doubt that whoever owns the Falcon now could have spoken to one of their contacts—and so the kids all line up, curious.

Mara’s hand settles on the lightsaber she wears on her belt. Wedge feels his own lack of a weapon keenly. He can hardly go and retrieve the blaster kept in his bedside drawer, though. Whoever is on the Falcon can’t be that much of a threat—they could have gunned the complex from atmosphere if they so chose.

The Falcon settles, groaning as it does so, metal clanking in that way old ships do. The gangway lowers. Wedge reaches for Mara’s elbow, needing the solidity of his partner at his side, as he wonders who could be in the Falcon. Is it Leia, come with information and an update on what the Galaxy faces? One of the young racing pilots Han trained so closely, upholding his legacy? Luke himself, finally retrieved from his hideaway? That seems unlikely—Mara would know, surely—but Wedge’s heart still skips a beat at the thought.

It’s Chewbacca who emerges first. He wears grief strapped across him, right alongside his bandoleer, and he growls something that sounds halfway between a greeting and a condolence. Wedge isn’t quite sure—his Shyriwook has always been abysmal. Mara’s is sketchy, but better than his. One of the students knows it, of that Wedge has no doubt. He takes the offered embrace, speaking aloud his condolences to Chewie, for his best friend is dead, and Wedge has lost a lot of those over the course of the war, and he knows the pain they leave behind them.

Wedge steps back. There’s a girl hovering on the ramp, looking at Chewie, for the confirmation that she is welcome. Wedge scrunches his face up, trying to see if he recognises her from anywhere. Ultimately, he decides, she’s unfamiliar. Beside him, Mara bristles as she’s hit with the girl’s raw, unadulterated potential in the Force. It’s Mara’s turn to grab Wedge’s elbow, pulling him back and behind her. “Wedge, careful.”

Mara is perhaps easier spooked these days than she once was—having your home burned to ash tends to do that to someone. But Wedge knows to always follow her instincts.

“Who are you?” Mara asks.

“Rey. Just Rey.” She stands next to Chewie, looking at home there, like she belongs with him. Chewie roars, and Wedge recognises that as a note of confirmation. “The Resistance sent me here—Leia Organa did. She said I had some things I could learn from you.” She hesitates for a moment, and her eyes fall to the floor. “And I have some things you ought to know.”

“Like what?” Wedge asks. He’s curious to what information this girl can possibly have to tell them.

Rey sucks in a deep breath. She looks deeply uncomfortable. “I’m so sorry—I don’t know if you’ve heard. Leia doesn’t think you have. But Luke Skywalker is dead.”

Mara laughs. Wedge just cocks his head, then glances back at his partner. No, he’s pretty sure Luke’s still alive. “Try that again.”

Rey looks at them both, completely mystified at their reaction. “I know he meant something, to both of you—at least, that’s what Poe said, Luke never mentioned either of you. But he’s dead. I felt him go. He saved the Resistance on Crait, and the strain was too much.”

Wedge glances over at Mara again. Her eyes are closed, breathing soft. He knows, inherently, that she’s reaching out across the force bond, checking in on Luke. “I don’t know who you are, girl, but you’re wrong. Luke’s alive. He’s not particularly happy about it, but he’s alive.”

That makes the girl—Rey—stop in her tracks. Her face screws up in confusion. “But—” She looks to Chewie, who just shrugs. “Leia felt him go too.”

“Up until a month ago, no one had felt Luke in the Force for eight years. Do you really think he’s not capable of hiding from you if he wanted to—hiding from everyone?” Mara asks.

“Then how come you can feel him?” Rey retorts.

“Maybe because I’m his partner, and we share a force-bond?” Mara says. “Or maybe it’s because I was in his head as he was dying, and I dragged him back to life with my own two hands.”

They stare at each other. Wedge feels like he’s got stuck in the middle of another fight over Luke—he thought, after he and Mara had settled their differences, that that would be the last one. But here is a new fight, over who knows him best in the force.

“Look, how about you come inside, we all settle down, and we can talk about just exactly how you know anything about Luke?” Wedge suggests.

Thankfully, his invitation is accepted.

.

Rey knows where Luke is, and that’s the only thing that really matters.

Focusing on anything else she tells them is difficult. All Mara can think about is that she might have Luke back, be able to see with her own two eyes that’s he’s alive and alright. She keeps the bond as open as she can, reaching for Luke, who truly is an entire Galaxy away. He’s so close, and she misses him so dearly.

Rey has an entire story to tell, being raised on a desert hell of a planet. She’s got friends with her too—a stormtrooper who was conditioned to fight, who Mara sympathises deeply with; a mechanic; and a pilot who seems to know Wedge well. (All pilots know Wedge well, but Wedge seems to know him as well, so Mara guesses he must be okay.) All of them have been through hell. Rey tells them about her time with Luke, about the bitter shell of a man he became, about the lessons she learnt from him, and from Kylo Ren.

Power thrums through Rey’s veins, and Mara can tell it’s eating her up, gobbling up every piece of her it can get at. She’s making fine work on controlling it, but she needs more help. And she needs a lightsaber. So after the kids have finished telling their story, Wedge approaches Mara. “We need to go to him,” Wedge says, taking Mara’s hands in his own. “He needs us. Needs to get off that island.”

“You have to go,” Mara says back. She aches for Luke, but it’s their oldest and most fundamental rule; one of them must be at sanctuary at all times. It’s how they keep safe. And she knows that she is needed here, that she can do more for Rey than Wedge can, and Wedge stands as good a chance as she does at hauling him off that island. “Take the _Jade_ _’s Fire_ , and bring him back to us.”

Wedge looks at her. He looks at her with that serious intent, the look that convinced her that he maybe wasn’t the fool she’d first taken him for. “You’re sure?” he asks, knowing what she is giving him, offering him; the chance to see Luke again. It’s an immense amount of trust she’s placing in his hands, that he will succeed, when no one else has.

“I’m sure,” Mara replies.

She kisses him, on the mouth. They’ve kissed a lot, over the years—mostly for Luke’s benefit. In the years since he left, their relationship has morphed into something different, something they can’t quite put the words to. It’s for comfort, and reassurance; for hope and love. It’s different to how Mara would kiss Luke. She thinks it’s the same for Wedge. That doesn’t make it less meaningful.

He’ll leave after dinner, they decide. Everyone always feels better after food. They make introductions between Rey and her friends and the students at Sanctuary, and watch as Rey is pulled happily into a group of older students, who are all fascinated by what she’s done. Each of her friends is claimed by another contingent of students, leaving Wedge and Mara to sit quietly together and eat. To just enjoy each other’s company.

They each have a bag packed, in case of emergency, so Wedge retrieves his. Adds a couple more things to it he thinks he might need, says goodbye to the students, and then walks out to the hangar where the _Jade_ _’s Fire_ is kept. Mara is there, already running through preflight. The ship’s engine’s are warm, and she’s ready to go. Wedge stows his things, familiarises himself with the yacht, which he doesn’t fly often. Just before he leaves, he pops out, sharing one final embrace with Mara. “Stay safe,” he says. “And look out for those kids. I think they could all use a friend.”

Mara huffs. She places a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll try.” She steps back, hands to his shoulders, pressing thumbs against the line of his collar bone, before dropping them completely. “Good hunting Wedge. May the Force be with you.”

And then Poe Dameron jogs up, a rather familiar droid on his heels. “Don’t suppose you’ve got room for two more?” he asks.

Mara drops to her knees to look at Artoo, Luke’s old and faithful droid. He beeps and whistles as she brushes a hand over his head. “You tried, I know you did,” she whispers to him. “I think he’s had some sense kicked into him. Between you and Wedge, I don’t think he’ll resist.”

Wedge looks at Poe, and Artoo, and gestures for them to come aboard. “Could always do with a few more hands, come on.”

.

The _Jade_ _’s Fire_ is an elegant, well-modified ship, sleek and powerful, the sort of ship anyone could be proud of.

Luke has always been glad to see it, in the skies above him, because its appearance always heralds the arrival of one of the people he loves most in the Galaxy. This time, a different person to the one he expects steps off the ship, but he is no less glad to see them.

In truth, he’s glad it’s Wedge. Wedge has lived with the anger and the fury caused by Luke’s disappearance once before, and this time his heart can’t be brought to bear that grudge; he’s just glad that Luke is alive and safe. Any words of aspersion over Luke’s choices die on Wedge’s lips when Wedge catches sight of Luke. Wedge draws Luke into an embrace, arms wrapped tight around him; Luke wonders if Wedge will ever let go again. And then Wedge kisses him, and it’s the first glimpse of home Luke has had in a long time.

He has his doubts whether Mara will be that welcoming.

Nevertheless, Wedge is a stubborn bastard when he wants to be. He won’t let Luke wallow in his misery on Ahch-To for a moment longer than he has to. Also, the Porgs that remain on the Island are taking a startling interest in him, and Wedge rather suspects that they might start nesting in his hair if he stays.

(Wedge chases them all out the _Jade_ _’s Fire_. Mara will not stand for small creatures making a home in her ship, no matter how cute they are. This is not the Falcon.)

And so, Luke finds himself on the _Jade_ _’s Fire_. Leaving his sanctuary behind him, a sanctuary that has long since become a prison, and heading to Sanctuary, Wedge and Mara’s home. He knows he’s lucky to get this second chance. A chance to see them again. A chance at life.

“You don’t need to look so nervous,” Wedge says, sitting down beside Luke. Poe Dameron, in the cockpit, has just signalled that he’s making his way through the anomaly that guards Sanctuary. “Mara will be glad you’re alive and well.”

“Mara isn’t you,” Luke reminds him. “And I hurt her. I’ve got to live with that.”

Wedge reaches over. He takes Luke’s hand, the one that is a prosthetic. He runs his hand across the scoring of the blaster mark along the back of it, tutting softly at the disrepair Luke’s let it fall into. “She loves you. Yeah, she’ll probably give you hell for what you did to her—what you did to us. But she wants you back as badly as I do. You almost dying—it scared her. Us.”

Luke doesn’t say what he’s sure Wedge probably knows, that Mara’s own stubbornness is the only reason he’s still alive. He was content to melt away into the Force, every effort expended, and then Mara had latched on, and refused to let him go. At the time, he’d been furious with her, for daring to disrupt his process.

Now, he is only glad.

Luke uses his flesh-and-blood hand to cup Wedge’s cheek. Wedge’s hair has turned all the way to silver-white whilst Luke has been away; it had been a steel grey before. “I’m sorry,” he says, brushing his thumb over Wedge’s cheek, “that I hurt you.”

“I’ll live.” Wedge is smiling, soft, full of delight that Luke is here; nothing else matters to him. “I’m just happy you’re here now.”

Someday, Luke may find a way to repay Wedge for all his faith and kindness over the years. He doesn’t deserve Wedge, has never lived a life that earned Wedge’s endless patience. He always tried to make the decisions he thought were best, but so many of those decisions have been wrong, have led to others being hurt. Luke has to take responsibility for that.

Luke runs over his thoughts in his head, wondering what he can possibly say to Mara that may console her, what to say to someone who you love so dearly. Mara was in his head as Luke wanted to die. She knows the truth of him in ways that Wedge doesn’t. She won’t forgive so easy.

Poe announces their arrival at Sanctuary. He’s also the first to disembark the ship, heading quickly for an orange-and-white spherical droid, and Rey and two of their friends. Luke stands at the gangway, alongside Wedge, feeling the butterflies in his stomach start to flutter. He can see Mara waiting out there. She looks the same as she did eight years ago, still beautiful and fierce.

Wedge gives Luke a minute, to step forward, be the first to greet Mara. Luke doesn’t take it. So Wedge steps forward instead, descending to greet Mara, voice full of good cheer. Mara seems to melt as she returns his greetings, embracing him and giving him a good kiss. They stand with their heads ducked together, whispering quietly.

Luke is torn between feeling utterly shut out and excluded, and being glad that they had each other.

“I don’t know why you bothered dragging me back,” Luke says, huffing slightly, a tone that has a hint of humour in it that is completely undercut by how much he sounds like he doesn’t want to be here. Wedge and Mara both turn to look at him. “Wedge is far more reliable than I ever was.”

Mara cocks her head at him. “For Force’s sake,” she says, stalking towards him. “You’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.” She walks past him, peering into her ship. “I hope that rescuing you hasn’t put a scratch on the _Jade_ _’s Fire’s_ paint.”

“Wedge made sure that none of the Porgs made nests in it,” Luke comments.

“Wedge always was the responsible one.” Mara seems satisfied. “I’ve seen what they’ve done to the Falcon. Didn’t think that ship could be any more run down, and now it’s home to dozens of those creatures.” Mara shivers. “No thank you.”

Mara retreats, back down the ramp. When she notices that Luke hasn’t followed her, she looks back over her shoulder. “Come on,” she says, gesturing sharply with her head. “Get with the program, farmboy.”

Luke scampers down the ramp, following her across the open lawn in front of the Sanctuary building. “Mara, I—”

“Shut up,” Mara says. “I’ll hear your apologies later. For now, you owe one to Rey, for making her think you were _dead_ , and I think you owe one to your poor sister as well, and _then_ _—_ and only then—can we talk about what you did to me.”

Luke’s penance starts here. And he’s going to do exactly what Mara says.

.

The evening sun is setting, disappearing into the planes, sending a red-pink aura over everything. Everyone at Sanctuary is gathered outside, in the cool air, for evening meditation. Seated quietly, Mara leads the thoughts for the youngest, inviting them to reflect on their days, focus on their achievements, wonder what could be achieved in a new day.

When she dismisses the class, Luke wonders whether he should go too. He glances over to Rey, who looks far happier than she ever did on Ahch-To, amongst her friends. A barrel of silver is hooked to her belt; she’s built a lightsaber of her own. Mastered it in far less time than it took Luke. Luke’s father’s lightsaber is lost for good now. Good riddance, Luke thinks. It was time for a weapon from that era to meet it’s end.

Just as he’s on his feet, and about to leave, Mara calls his name. “Luke, come here will you?” Her words are softer than anything Luke has heard from her that day. Not that he blames her for her icy attitude.

He walks up to her. She’s still seated, and so Luke sits in front of her. “You’re good at this,” he says. “You and Wedge—you’ve built something to be proud of.”

“Well, we couldn’t just abandon these kids to the Galaxy, not with how things are,” Mara replies. It’s a subtle dig at what Luke did. “A lot of hard work, but it’s rewarding. And Wedge—well, he’s the one who actually makes it work.”

Her gaze tracks across the open grass to where Wedge is standing with a couple of youngsters, quietly discussing something with them. Luke follows it. He’d always known Wedge would be a fine teacher, from their earliest days in Rogue Group; he’s a natural at it. One of the kids giggles, hands over her mouth, and then silently points to Luke and Mara. Wedge looks back at them and smiles, shooing the kids and making his way over to them with an easy swagger.

“I don’t need to break up an argument, do I?” Wedge jokes. He sits down beside Mara, brushing against her, sharing an easy intimacy that lights a spark of jealousy inside Luke. “You two look like you’re getting along.”

“We’re bonding over mutual admiration of you,” Mara says, possibly just to watch Wedge become flustered, a red flush colouring his cheeks. He waves her off, and she places a hand to his knee, leans over to kiss his cheek.

“I’m glad you two had each other,” Luke says, the words slipping out.

He hadn’t known if they would. Hadn’t a clue whether his disappearance would have broken them apart, if they’d have anything between them once he left, given that he’d known he was the bridge between them. But what they have now is stronger than it ever was.

And now that he’s started speaking, all the things that he needs to say come slipping out.

“I’m sorry. I can’t even say I didn’t mean to hurt you—I left without thinking. And I should have known that would hurt you. I have no excuses. I was doing what I thought was best, but what do I know?”

“Not a lot,” Mara mutters.

“I was scared. About the choices I’d made. Whether I made the wrong ones. And in doing that, I fucked up again. I should have—I should have seen it. That hiding wasn’t the answer. That staying away from you could _never_ be the answer.” Luke keeps looking at Mara. He says the words with as much sincerity as he can muster, speaking from his heart.

“Do you know how it felt?” Mara asks. “To wake up for the first time in eight years, and know that you were still alive, and then to feel you dying?”

Her words are heart-wrenching, and they hit like a sucker-punch to Luke’s gut. He’d known that the bond had sprung back into place, the moment he opened himself back to the Force, but he hadn’t realised how much had echoed across back to her. He’d never intended her to feel his death. He’d have never wished that on her.

“No,” he says.

Luke has been in situations similar, watching the people he loves die. Seen them placed at risk. But he doesn’t have Mara’s experience.

“If you ever do something like that again, Skywalker, so help me, I’ll kill you myself.” She looks intent, and Luke believes she would do it.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Wedge chimes in. “You love him too much.”

Mara shoots a look of utter betrayal at Wedge, but Wedge just shrugs. Then Mara’s features soften, and she smiles softly. “Force help me, but I do.” She looks back up at Luke. “Never stopped.”

“I know things can’t go back to how they were—too much has happened. For all of us.” Luke skirts over the details. They all know. “But I… I still love you. Both of you. I want to be with you. On your terms, of course, and—”

Mara shuts him up with a kiss.

“I pulled you back to life,” she says. “How can you think I can’t want you in my life, Luke, for all you hurt me. We can work that out.”

“Stay,” Wedge says. “That’s all we want.”

“I think I can manage that.”


End file.
